


On Me

by thelongcon (rainer76)



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2014-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-24 05:19:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1592987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/thelongcon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"To hell with the noise," Rick says, and levels his gun.</p><p>Or six vignettes where Daryl has a slight problem</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Me

**Author's Note:**

> The opening segment of this fic is taken directly from the deleted scenes from episode one, season two. If you haven't seen it, you can find it on youtube if you're interested.
> 
> I spent the afternoon reading depressing *depressing* stories thanks to a certain tumblr, and all claims of innocence aside, I am blaming her, this was my attempt to pick myself up from the floor.

1/.

 

Some walkers eat delicately, resting on their knees, body bowed, hands in front of their mouths as they chow down; others practically dislocate their jaw trying to shove meat down their pie-hole - the ones in front of the hospice are a combination of the two; the flies are already thick, the sickly smell of rotting flesh can’t be avoided in the city but it’s overwhelmingly ripe in the courtyard.  The children, some of the women, flinch back.  Daryl sees Glenn stagger, his face crestfallen as he whispers. “ _Where_ are the look-outs?”

Daryl already knows what they’re going to find before he rounds the corner - he can see it in the set of Rick’s shoulders, two steps ahead and leading the charge into the territory claimed by the Vatos crew; he can sense it in the pit of his own stomach, hear it in the lack of challenge from the overhead roofs - even before Shane says:  “ _Sonofabitch_.”  It doesn’t smell like fresh meat.  It smells rancid, like something left to bloat in the sun, over-ripe until it pops.

The low growl is familiar, rising in volume as the dead catch sight of them.  There are the ‘neat-eaters’, and then there are ones who unhinge their jaws like friggin’ snakes, throats bulging with disembodied hands.  Rick’s mouth draws back into a silent snarl, teeth bared, the men strung out on either side of him shift uneasily.  The dead shamble, trip over the bodies discarded on the ground - half consumed and disembowelled - _reaching_ for them.

“To hell with the noise,” Rick says viciously, and levels his gun. 

He’s a white t-shirt in a Sherriff’s hat and he gives voice to the one thing they’re all thinking.  The first round sounds like a cannon in the confines of the courtyard, Daryl ditches his crossbow in favour of a handgun, the echo of Shane’s shot-gun thundering in his ears like a clap of thunder.  Dale, T-Dog, Glenn, Rick, Shane, himself, they lay waste to those walkers.  “Come on,” Rick roars when its over; he’s in a half-crouch, gun heavy at his side, two paces ahead of everyone else and already bolting for the hospice doors. “On me!” he orders.

 _Ass-swipe_ , Daryl thinks, viciously. 

Officer ‘On Me’ isn’t so keen on being left alone but he had no qualms about ditching Merle, leaving his brother to fend for himself.  It’s been one day since the CDC and Daryl hasn’t forgotten anything.  Even so, he is the first beside Rick when they arrive at the hospice entryway – there’s a half beat as they exchange a quick look - then Rick is flinging the double door open and Daryl advances with his cross-bow raised.  _On me_ , Daryl mocks silently in his head - like big ole Gary Cooper in his cowboy hat - only Lori’s been sleeping around with Shane for the last few weeks - so the only thing _on Rick_ is a case of the clap. They sweep through the darkened corridor as a two man unit, and when they draw to a stop beside the first dead body – Carlos, they both recognise him from when they rescued Glenn - Daryl catches sight of the perplexed look on Shane’s face, trailing behind them both and somehow knocked out of orbit.  But then the girl starts whimpering incessantly and Daryl’s foul moods turns a whole lot fouler.  “Someone shut that kid up, or I will!”

 

 

2/.

 

“What direction?”

The church bells echo distantly, rebounding from the gentle hills of the Georgian terrain, distorted through the canopy of trees and underlying forest.  The group bunch together, slowing to a stop as they try to pinpoint the source. “I think _that_ way - I’m pretty sure,” Rick announces, head tilted toward a copse of bushes, his eyebrows drawn together.

Shane shakes his head once, uncertain. He turns in a half circle, the shot-gun clutched close to his chest.  “Damn, it’s hard to tell for sure.”

“If we hear them, maybe Sophia does to?” Carol adds, pushing in close.  There’s fragile hope in her voice, with the lack of make-up and the closely shorn hair, every emotion on her face runs naked.

Glenn’s voice is neutral as he interrupts. “If someone is ringing those bells, maybe they’re calling others?” 

And maybe if you all shut up, we’d be able to hear better, Daryl thinks.  He’s facing the same direction Rick’s looking, trying to tune out the speculation just as Andrea feels compelled to add her own two cents worth.  “Or signalling they found her?”

“Or she could be ringing them herself,” Rick concludes, impatient.  Rick starts off, moving in the direction he selected, not looking over his shoulder even once. “Come on,” he says softly to the group at large, and when they reach the open field where the church is situated - just before they all break out into a sprint - he adds. “On me.”

 _Ass_ , Daryl thinks, because staying _on Rick_ in a full-out sprint is like trying to keep up with Carl Lewis, those legs cover freakish distances and personally, Daryl _hates_ running - before the turn he was more of a ‘two-pack-of-cigarettes-a-day’ kind of a guy, not the sort to take a leisurely jog in the morning.  Shane and Rick cover the distance like their competing for the Olympics, Glenn and Daryl follow at a slower pace, and even as he’s thinking it – _ass-ass-you-fucking-ass-wipe_ – Daryl can’t help notice he’s in perfect view of that ass, too, and man, there’s something to be said about the cut of a police uniform.

By the time they’ve reached the church, they’ve all evened out again, and Daryl swings wide, takes the stairs three at a time until he’s right beside Rick, the two of them poised by the church doors. Rick holds up his finger, head tilted as he makes eye-contact with Daryl, then counts it down silently. They push the doors open together, perfectly in sync.  Shane, at the bottom of the stairs, frowns at them both.

 

 

3/.

 

Who thought two words – two measly words - could become such a big problem, Daryl fumes; it’s not the context, because there’s nothing sexy about the prison being attacked from the inside - their people in-the-line of danger while they’re on the wrong side of the fence - it’s the way Rick says it, the vibration in his chest, the dead certainty they will obey him – on me, come with me, you’re with me – as if there is no alternative for Daryl, as if each reiteration is a way of binding him closer.

Rick’s legs are eating up the ground, desperation in every straining muscle, and Daryl knows he hasn’t a hope in hell of keeping up with the man this time.  The gate looms ahead, chained and double-locked, Daryl skids to a stop, one hand cupped to his mouth as he hollers down the line to Glenn.  “Keys!”

A daisy-chain of hard throws sees the keys arrive at the gate the same time Rick does, he snatches them from the air single-handed and by the time he’s wrangled the lock open, both Glenn and Daryl are stationed at his side, glued to him like sentinels.  On me – Daryl has heard every inflection, variation, of those words for months now – and it’s becoming a serious problem, running with a hard-on isn’t comfortable for one, and two, Rick doesn’t need the added complication. Trying to makes things easy for Rick is Daryl’s speciality; and that doesn’t include traumatising the man with a fresh interpretation of _on me,_ because in his more idle fantasies, Daryl would be all over that like a hot rash.

On me would be Rick sprawled on his back, utterly startled.

On me would be the slow grind of hips, soft kisses, it would be Daryl working his hand into those tight jeans, nuzzling under Rick’s chin, finding all the dark spaces where his scent was purest.   On me could easily be _in_ me, tongue in his ass and torturously slow suction, and Daryl would teach him all the filthy ways to find pleasure in this world, he’d wring it out, leech Rick dry; he’d cup an ear to Rick’s chest and listen to the rushing ocean of blood cycling through his body, gentle those panting breaths with a stroke or two, he’d fist a hand in the man’s unruly curls and _never_ let go.

Seriously, Daryl just needs Rick to stop saying those words because it’s doing things to him, and his reaction is becoming Pavlovian. He breathes out, settles his mind into blankness, and watches Rick closely as they approach the door to C-block, Rick looks toward him at the last second, double-checking, but Daryl already has his crossbow raised and he’s not going to be any readier than he already is. 

He nods once, in silent response, and watches Rick slam the heavy door open.

 

 

4/.

 

The second time the prison is attacked it’s not some wayward in-mate behind the mayhem but a damn virus. 

Daryl enters D-block to utter chaos. Fred Daxter is standing in the entry, firing at a walker and missing entirely.  Daryl snatches the shot-gun, tearing it out of the older man’s grip rudely.  He’s not entering the cell-block with _Fred Daxter_ armed at his back - Daryl’s just as likely to be shot by friendly fire than to die by walker bite - Fred staggers, off-balance and startled, staring at his empty hands as Daryl darts around him.  “Daryl!” Rick hollers, fast on his heels.

“Got it!” Daryl retorts - and throws Rick the shotty – making sure the man’s armed.   

He hears Rick clear and check the chamber, followed by an aborted curse, and then Daryl’s moving onward, sweeping up a bawling kid, keeping out of Glenn and Sasha’s way.  Fred must have used the last round, Daryl realises later, when he sees Rick with his knife in hand.  He hasn’t heard the words _on me_ for weeks now, and there’s a part of Daryl that’s grateful, entirely grateful, while another part (the pragmatist, the ruling side of Daryl that’s never believed in fantasies, or found much worth in them) yearns for it. _Just say the words man,_ Daryl wants to proclaim, _you know I’ll follow you the moment you’re ready to run again._

Daryl saw what losing Lori did to Rick, saw the man come apart at the seams, and he doesn’t juxtapose his own desires onto a party that’s ignorant of them.  The friendship is enough, in Daryl’s eyes, the friendship is _everything_.

 

 

5/.

 

“On me.”  Daryl’s head is cloudy, the words come from a great distance; he rolls over, shrugs off the blanket then staggers to his feet with his eyes half closed, groping for the crossbow and pulling on one boot haphazardly.  “Uh, Daryl,” Rick continues, hesitantly. It’s only then - when Daryl’s balanced on one foot and hopping like a demented crow, that he realises Rick wasn’t actually addressing him to begin with. Ford quirks an eyebrow, cigar clamped between his teeth, looking between the two of them.

“He obey your orders in a delirium, too, Officer Grimes?”

Heat flashes through Daryl’s cheekbones - just the fever, he reminds himself, only the fever - he ignores Ford entirely, fixing his attention on Rick.  “Where you going?”

“Perimeter check.”

“I got it.”

“Boy,” Ford interrupts.  “You can barely stand, get back under those blankets before you fall down.”

_Boy?_

That flush is turning into a raging fire. Daryl jerks, fists clenching at the order – the tone is all wrong, the intonation, the river-flow of words tumbling in a torrent, it rubs against Daryl’s skin like black sand – douses the sleepiness away and rouses him fully.  “What you say to me?”

“Easy,” Rick says, and steps forward with alacrity, one hand on Daryl’s wrist to forestall him; his eyes are deep blue, a well of growing concern.  “Easy now. Ford’s got it. I don’t need you on this one.” Daryl jerks like he’s been shot, the words echoing in the caverns of his skull, he pulls away except Rick is reeling him in again, voice insistent.  “Hey, _hey_ , this is a cake-walk, but I’m gonna need you on your feet, beside me, when things get rough again, hear?”

“One of Eugene’s farts could knock you down right now, you’re better off being useless in here than useless out there, boy,” Ford drawls contemptuously, and chomps down on his cigar.

Daryl hurls his boot. 

He has the satisfaction of seeing the cigar crumple, a moment of sheer comic surprise on Ford’s features, and then Rick body-checks him, shoving Daryl against the wall before he can follow it up with a charge. It’s a full on cinch, both arms wrapped around Daryl’s torso, pining his arms to his side, cheek-to-cheek and using head control to force Daryl’s neck up.   His body is cold with sweat, hot with fever, and Rick feels like a balm against the long stretch of his body, his breath warm and even against the exposed column of Daryl’s throat.  “One A-grade fever and you revert to the day we met,” Rick says, amused.

“Didn’t throw it at _you,_ " Daryl snarls.

“To which I’m eternally grateful.” 

It should be awkward, it _is_ becoming awkward, because Daryl is starting to remember all those fantasies that came with the two-punch combination of _on me_ and Rick is - all over him - that is.  “Get off,” he protests, and shoves at the man ineffectively.

“Yeah,” Rick answers and withdraws a fraction, his voice is low, intimate, hard-wired to wrap around Daryl’s cock and pull, his expression is apologetic.  “I didn’t mean to wake you.”  He touches Daryl’s forehead, as if checking for a temperature, sliding under too-long hair and taking some of the ache away from his temple.  Daryl’s been reacting to Rick’s voice since day one – it’s a kink, sue him – Daryl’s had plenty of other kinks and hell of a lot more quirkier in his time.  None of Rick’s crew are what you call ‘heavy sleepers’, not even in the midst of a high-grade fever.  

“’S’alright, but do me a favour and take Michonne.”  At this Daryl glares, fixing his gaze over Rick’s shoulder to pin-point Ford. “She’s not pussy enough to be taken out by a boot.”

“Fuoick you,” Ford retorts, he’s trying to straighten the zig-zag from his cigar unsuccessfully, his nose bloody from the impact. “That was a Cuban you prick.”

Rick takes a step backward, then another, there’s something calculating in his expression as he regards Daryl, one part amused and two parts considering. “Get some rest, we’ll be back before you know it.”

 

 

6/.

 

Rick has the body of a runner, spare, with a machine-like quality to his limbs, he’s one of those unassuming types that just keeps on going – except Daryl never found him unassuming – never once thought it wise to underestimate Rick Grimes; Daryl’s been caught in Rick’s orbit since the day they met, the distance between them decaying with each passing year, until it’s negligible, until it’s nothing, until all the excuses cindered into oblivion. “C’mere,” Rick says, and his voice is lazy, the soft curve of his smile secretive as Mona Lisa. “C’mere, you.”

Daryl’s thought about it, in his imagination it was furtive, or sometimes guilt-ridden; it was adrenalin-based or motivated by grief; it was fast and furious or slow and sweet – it ran the whole spectrum of fantasy.

In reality, it’s a smile breaking with joy, it’s Rick posed against a tree, hips jutted forward and his hand tangling in Daryl’s belt to jerk him close.  It’s a breath of laughter as Rick’s eyes gleam with amusement. “On me.”

“Ass-wipe,” Daryl mutters, and pounces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
